Category: issues

In Toronto, a task force seems ready to recommend that the Hummingbird Center, the city’s main performing arts venue, be decommissioned after the Canadian National Opera moves into a new home. Hummingbird fans are outraged. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Hawaii’s Bishop Museum apologizes for turning over ancient Island artifacts over to one native custodial group when others had a claim also. The museum’s actions have damaged its credibility among island groups. – Honolulu Star Bulletin

• Boston has long lagged behind other cities in public funding for the arts. Now its mayor announces a major arts initiative to try to aid the arts. But the plan is long on goals and somewhat short of substance.- Boston Globe
  
  
  • Where’s the money? – Boston Herald
    
    
  • After a year of study, mayor’s finding is that the arts need more money and better facilities? Now there’s a real shocker. – Boston Herald

A San Diego judge has ruled that a pair of art books in the San Diego Library that feature photographs of nude girls, are pornography. Police are investigating; they have requested from the library the names of anyone who has checked the books out. – San Diego Union-Tribune

Berlin’s cultural world is in crisis. Of course pretty much every other European capital has gone through some sort of public funding crisis in the past two decades, but that doesn’t particularly ease the pain. “Berlin supports three opera houses, seven orchestras, 50 theatres, 170 museums and 300 galleries – all this for 3.5 million residents.” Where is the money going to come to keep this extravagance afloat? – The Telegraph (UK)

What is it about artists and substance abuse? “Artists have long taken refuge in substances during barren spells, or indulged in them as part of macho rituals. Yes, a great many writers, and other artists, would toast the liberalisation of illegal highs. But to cause a real commotion, politicians would have to criminalise the innocuous pick-me-ups and blameless crutches that are their true inspiration and solace.” – New Statesman

The National Endowment announces 800 grants today. More than half are going to outreach and arts education, bringing the arts to “underserved” communities. – Washington Post  

“A University of Iowa Museum of Art employee is suing the school over what she says is an attempt to stifle an art exhibit supported by a federal grant. She claims the museum director canceled her exhibit in retaliation for filing a university grievance against him. She said university officials retaliated by withholding matching money previously promised for the exhibit.” – Des Moines Register

Peter Sellars has been hired to run the 2002 Adelaide Festival. But instead of bringing the best international artists to town (as Australian festivals are famous for doing) he’s taking the homegrown route. We need to build the country’s “cultural infrastructure,” he declares. “It is time that poets and musicians, filmmakers and architects and chefs were around the table together. If we are asking the society itself to get better at reconciliation, shouldn’t we artists – the most notoriously bickering and biting group on Earth – make some attempt to clean our own little house?” – Sydney Morning Herald

Seeing how schools have largely abdicated responsibility for arts education, and worried about growing audiences for the future, Broadway producers have stepped up their education and outreach efforts. “But for all the good will and good publicity that education programs may generate, do such tactics really work? Does one Broadway show make a future theatergoer?” – New York Times